Robotics help mining company set standards in procurement accuracy and efficiency

AbstractA major mining company shifted a large portion of their human-intensive procurement processes onto the Infosys Robotics platform. This case study traces the approach adopted by Infosys to drive improved efficiency & effectiveness through robotic process automation (RPA), and thereby deliver operational savings and other benefits.

CASE STUDY

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The client landscape

A multinational mining corporation which

had a varied procurement outsourcing

landscape partnered with Infosys BPM to

drive greater efficiency, standardization

and effectiveness in its source-to-pay

processes.

The mining giant faced several challenges.

Its procurement processes were localized

and fragmented, and it faced a significant

shortage of qualified people to recruit into

its procurement department. Moreover, its

existing staff were heavily committed to

transactional work leaving them with lesser

bandwidth to focus on strategic aspects.

The journey to implement effective RPA and derive better benefits

Infosys BPM identified multiple

opportunities for standardization and

automation of its client’s processes by

focusing on two critical areas to achieve

the end objectives:

• driving higher transaction volumes and

• improving turnaround time

Through leveraging Infosys’ state of the

art RPA platform, a hand-picked team

from both partners drove automation for

the existing procure-to-pay processes

through a phased approach of process

revision, standardization and setting up

of a business rules engine. At each step,

Infosys’s subject matter & technology

experts and change management agents

provided significant support and guidance

to pave way for the automation.

Automating processes, the Infosys way

To implement RPA wholly and correctly,

it is critical to first have stabilized and

harmonized back-end processes. Hence

during the first stage, the team focused

on stabilizing the process to ensure the

continuity of the business, and defining the

“as- is” processes.

In the second stage, Infosys BPM integrated

relevant functions bringing them onto a

single platform. The process steps in the

integrated platform were kept similar to

steps performed in legacy systems.

In the next stage, using Infosys’s best-in-

class process harmonization framework,

the thrust shifted to standardizing

processes across the globe while building

in flexibility to deal with local nuances.

Once the team had clearly stabilized and

harmonized processes in place, Infosys

RPA teams worked closely with operation

teams, client stakeholders and domain

experts to design the key automations

across source-to-pay processes. Each

design took into account the nature of

the transactions and control points, and

underwent a phase of testing to ensure

there were no errors or deviations.

At each stage, the teams conducted

detailed discussions with all stakeholders

on every automation, before proceeding.

AutomateAutomate the processes which are transactional / repetitive in nature

and have scope for betterment

Standardize the processess acrossregions to bring uniformity in theprocess managed and �exibility in resource allocation

Work upon legacy systems to ensurezero e�ect of outsourcing to business as usual

Migrate the legacy systems to one edition of ERP and integrate the functions to derive process level

bene�ts

Stabilize

Integrate

Harmonize

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Key automations effected

While deciding on the processes to be

automated, the team selected those

that were highly repetitive in nature and

required significant manual effort. Here

are selected examples on the benefits of

automating these processes.

The bottom-line

Infosys BPM’s value re-engineering efforts led to some significant transformations across key procurement processes for the client. These

transformations usi ng robotic process automation delivered 40%-50% overall reduction of cycle time, 36% improvement in efficiency, and

100% accuracy.

The purchase request (PR) to purchase order (PO) cycle: Rule based processing steps in the PR to PO process were time consuming and affected

the PO processing time.

The team deployed a customized version of an Infosys proprietary tool to automate some 70+ rules for the conversion of PR to PO. The tool talks

with the client ERP and performs tasks without any manual intervention.

Automation of Invoice Data Entry and Indexing: The client’s current OCR tool was at the end of its lifecycle and technical support. The

process was also highly manual due to the low scan read accuracy of the tool, differing invoice formats received from various vendors, and

limited language support.

Infosys designed a tool to replace the existing one, with enhanced scan and read accuracy, machine learning capabilities, and support for

multiple languages.

Duplicate Data Validation in Material master: The client was facing substantial losses due to mistakes and duplicates while creating

material master, as these led to issues such as incorrect purchases, excessive inventory, or delay in purchasing.

Infosys designed a tool to validate the completeness of mandatory data as well as aid in creation of material description as per agreed

standards. The Infosys team also created an exhaustive library of materials, their standards, and naming nomenclature as well as region-wise

data entry templates and forms to aid the process.

LogintoERP

Check the PR queue

PR to PO

Check PR for

missing details

CheckPO history for details

Validationof PO for

adherenceto Business

Rules

Create PO

Improved the buyer touchless PO’s from 41% to 77%

E�ciencyAutomated ProcessesCost per PO was improved with the improvement in accuracy and e�ciency

E�ectivenessCycle time reduction by 50%

Experience

Materials master request

Manual data

extraction

Material Masters

Duplication checks

Data cleansing

and business validation

Updatein ERP

Ensured the Material Master data was validated and created in the tool accurately for 21,000 materials a month

E�ciencyAutomated ProcessesMaterial Master maintenance cost was reduced with accuracy improve-ment from 90% to 100%

E�ectivenessCycle time reduction by 40%

Experience

Physicaldocument

Document scan

Invoice Data Entry and Indexing

OCR - Data conversion

Real-time matching

Data validation

Autopostingin ERP

OCR accuracy increased from 52% to 92%

E�ciencyAutomated ProcessesReduced signi�cant e�orts required to validate the text captured by the earlier OCR engine

E�ectivenessCycle time reduction by 45%

Experience

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